“Kaze no Kizu!” InuYasha smiled in obvious self-satisfaction as the bat youkai shrieked, engulfed in the waves of flame from the Wind Scar. Dropping Tetsusaiga into the scabbard, he snorted and turned to face Miroku. “You're completely useless, monk, did you know?”

“On the contrary, InuYasha, I didn't need to do anything . . . You handled that youkai quite nicely without my aid.”

“Keh. Whatever. You're pathetic.”

Miroku chuckled. “Come now, it wasn't really that powerful a youkai.”

“That is beside the point. Why is it that you never lift a damn finger in a fight if I'm around?”

“That's not true . . . I was watching out for Kagome.”

InuYasha snorted. “She ain't even here!”

Miroku nodded. “Ah, but had she returned then I would have kept her safe.”

InuYasha snorted and stomped toward the well. “Don't worry about her. I'll take care of her, not you.”

With another chuckle, Miroku held his hand up perpendicular to his face and bowed as InuYasha hopped into the well.

InuYasha sighed as the time slip closed over him. Kagome had to go back to her time for one of her doctor visits. She'd hinted that she'd like to spend the night in her time, too. InuYasha made a face. `Fat fucking chance, wench . . . you have to shake the vial with me . . .'

Still his conscience nagged him. Since the bonding two weeks ago, Kagome hadn't gotten to spend much time at her home, either. Always with a smile when he came to bring her back, he knew that her lack of complaints were for his benefit. For the thousandth time he cursed himself for having been baka enough to unwittingly subject himself to the toxin and tried not to be too pleased about the idea that Kagome couldn't be that far away from him . . .

Hopping out of the well on Kagome's side, InuYasha lifted his face and breathed in. Her scent was weak. She must be inside.

Taking his time as he walked up the steps and out of the well house, InuYasha frowned. The dreams had stopped, thanks to the nightly bottle shaking. On the one hand, he was glad that he didn't have to worry about them anymore. On the other hand, he had a whole different problem to deal with now. Instead of going to sleep and seeing Kagome in his dreams, most nights found him wide awake, sitting up against the wall near Kagome, unable to sleep as he watched over her, as he listened to her sigh, watched her breathe. Precious few times he had caught a subtle change in her scent. Whatever she was dreaming of—whoever she was dreaming of . . . he wanted to know but was too embarrassed and too afraid to ask.

The first time he'd smelled the change in her scent a few nights ago, he'd been shocked. Maybe he hadn't really believed her when she had alluded to the idea that she'd had some dreams of her own. He wasn't sure what to think of it. Was she thinking of that Houjou thing, or even worse, Kouga? If InuYasha found out it was either of them, he'd hack them up, scatter the parts, and leave their bodies for the scavengers—see if he didn't. A singular thought nagged the back of his mind though. `What if she was dreaming about . . . me?'

He wasn't sure if that idea bothered him worse or the fact that Kagome always acted almost guilty in the morning . . . What would she have to feel guilty about? Her dreams couldn't even begin to compare to the ones he'd had for months . . . nothing on earth could compare to those . . .

And still, the smallest part of him missed those dreams with a vengeance. They had been so real, like they were actually happening . . . `Keh. Don't be stupid. Those dreams weren't real. They were tainted and . . .' his thoughts trailed off as he reached for the door handle.

The door swung open, and InuYasha shrieked as he jumped back.

“Kami, don't do that!” Kagome screamed as she clutched one hand over her heart and the other over her stomach. “What are you trying to do? Send me into labor? It's too soon, baka!”

“You're the one skulking around, swinging open doors, and trying to scare the hell outta me, bitch!” he snarled then stopped suddenly, ears flattening against his head. “You're not in labor, are you?”

“No, but I think I nearly died! What happened to your infamous hanyou senses, dog-boy?”

“I was preoccupied!” he hollered.

“With what?” she yelled.

“None of your damn business!” he bellowed back.

“I was just coming back! You didn't have to come get me anyway,” she informed him in a tight, clipped tone.

“Keh! Fine by me! Move it, will you? Damn, you're slow!”

Shooting him a fulminating glare, Kagome quirked an eyebrow and stopped in her tracks. “I see. Go on back, InuYasha. I think I'll stay here tonight.”

Balling her hands into fists at her sides and holding her arms rigid, she leaned forward enough to scream, “Then come back later!” into his face.

“Just fucking do it now!” he demanded.

“Ooh!” she raged but grabbed the vial and shook. “There! Are you happy now?”

“No, but I will be!” Turning on his heel and stomping back toward the well house, InuYasha mustered as must dignity as he could manage as he huffed through the doorway and hurled himself back into the well. `Stupid Kagome! What did I do? Not a damn thing, that's what!'

`Keh! I fight off youkai that come after the jewel, I make sure she has food and shelter . . . hell I cart her around like I'm her personal pack horse, and how does she repay me? Screaming in my face! Wench!' he fumed as the warmth of the time slip engulfed him. He didn't pay much attention to it. Too irritated and incensed over Kagome's uncharacteristic show of ill-temper, InuYasha snorted and pulled a pouty face that was useless since the wench in question was still in her time.

His mood had been plunged into seething by the time his feet landed on his side of the well. `Bite my head off because I came to get her? Keh! See if I ever go back to get her then! I don't care! She can just stay the hell there until she has that pup!'

“InuYasha, I thought you were bringing Kagome back,” Miroku said as InuYasha hopped out of the well.

The hanyou rolled his eyes. “She was the one bellowing at me, Miroku! Just because I was going to open the door when she was on the other side.”

“But she's in a very delicate condition, and having you at odds with her can't help.”

InuYasha shoved his arms together in the folds of his fire rat haori. “Too fucking bad. She can apologize. I didn't do a damn thing.”

“But she's bound to be a little more sensitive and emotional right now . . . and I know that you care about her, regardless of what you say.”

“Can it, monk. I told you, I ain't doing it.”

Miroku let that drop for the moment though he looked like he was thinking of something else. InuYasha didn't ask as he stomped off toward Goshinboku.

“May I ask you something, InuYasha?”

Sparing a quick glance over his shoulder at the persistent monk, InuYasha snorted as he kept moving. “You can ask,” he agreed. “Don't mean I'll answer.”

“Fair enough . . . It occurred to me that you have been a bit out of sorts since the binding ritual . . . any particular reason why?”

InuYasha's eyes shifted to meet Miroku's for a moment before he stubbornly turned his gaze toward the forest. “Dunno what you're talking about.”

Miroku sighed. “Have it your way, InuYasha . . .” Shaking his head, Miroku put a hand out to stop InuYasha's progress. “Be careful, will you? Your blood is mixed in that vial, and it could be dangerous. I don't think you'd harm her, but she is very vulnerable right now.”

“Keh. Back off, Miroku. You don't think I know that?”

“I know you know it. I think it's easy to forget, though.”

“She hasn't gotten to stay in her time for awhile, anyway.”

“Do you think you should be separated from her all night?”

InuYasha snorted. “She already shook the vial, monk. All I gotta do is shake it, too, and it's done.” To demonstrate his point, InuYasha grasped the vial and shook it ten times. “There . . . but I'm not going to get her.”

InuYasha paused for a moment as he considered Miroku's words. “Keh! That don't matter.”

“Are you so certain?”

“Yes, monk, yes. Neither one of us age five hundred years when we go through, do we?”

Miroku considered that and had to concede to InuYasha's logic. “All right,” he agreed slowly. “Be that as it may, it is still something that you should think on . . . at least if you brought Kagome back then you'd know you'd be safe from those dreams.” His gaze narrowed suspiciously when InuYasha quickly looked away. “Unless . . . it wouldn't bother you to have one of those dreams . . .?”

“I ain't like you, you pervert!” InuYasha pointed out though he couldn't help the rising wash of color that surged to the surface of his skin.

Miroku snorted. “You'll go to hell for lying, InuYasha.”

“Yeah? Well if you ain't going to hell for groping anything that moved for years, then nothing I do is going to make me go to hell before you.”

“Oh, I see,” Miroku said slowly, nodding as though something finally made sense to him. “You miss those dreams! That's why you've been in such a horrible state lately!”

The already flushed skin on his face darkened even more. “Keh! Don't be stupid!”

“I hear your denials but they fall on deaf ears . . . your color says it all . . . It absolutely looks like a case of `Hanyou-in-Hell'-red to me.”

“You're an ass, Miroku, and not even half an ass. You're the entire fucking ass.”

“I might well be an `entire ass', as you say, but at least I'm not afraid to tell my `mate' that I love her.”

InuYasha didn't bother to answer that. Bounding away toward the sanctity of Goshinboku, he ignored the sound of Miroku's laughter drifting through the air to him.

`Keh! He doesn't know a fucking thing about it!'

Leaping up into the welcoming branches of the God Tree, InuYasha made a face as he jerked Tetsusaiga out of his waistband and wrapped his arms around it. `They've all lost their fucking minds. Miroku's always been teetering on the edge of insanity. Sango had to have been nuts to marry that hentai houshi. The runt-fox and ape-shit are too young to be crazy but they'll get there . . . and what the hell has gotten into Kagome?'

Settling back with a sigh as he watched the stars peeking out from behind the spotty clouds, InuYasha let his head fall back against the tree trunk as he stared at the surrounding forest. Trying to ignore the slight emptiness that ached in his chest whenever Kagome went home, he deliberately focused instead on the butterfly youkai. If she was the same one he'd smelled in the old sage's hut as well as in the cave, why had she gone after Kikyou? Why would she want to hurt Kagome? Who the hell was she?

It didn't make sense. It seemed as though there were a missing piece to the puzzle, something he should have realized but just didn't. So far as he knew, he'd never met this youkai before. He'd have recognized the stench in the cave, if he had. If it were as simple as the bitch trying to get her hands on the Shikon no Tama, then why not just come after it? At least then he'd be able to fight her and be done with it. Still . . .

The memory of Kikyou's body falling through the air, of his inability to save her again, invaded his mind. Still possessing the power to hurt him, he flinched as Kikyou's pained smile came back to him, as she told him to protect Kagome.

All of it led back to the butterfly youkai. Determination lit in his eyes as a surge of hot anger welled up inside him as the smiling vision of Kagome assailed him. Lifting a hand to clutch the vial of blood, InuYasha frowned into the gathering darkness. `What if she . . . still looks like Kagome to me . . . ?' Another image of Kagome came to him. Standing so close to him, staring up at him with the gentle flush on her cheeks, with a bemusement in her eyes as she licked her rosy lips, as the light of the afternoon sunshine reflected off the hot spring to illuminate her gaze . . . He smiled. She was the Kagome he knew, the Kagome he . . .

`If I put a word to it, won't that make it all a little to real?' he wondered as he closed his eyes.

InuYasha snorted. “Keh! Who the hell cares? I'm not getting screamed at again, not tonight.”

“Not seeing eye to eye?”

“Not hardly. Anyway, what do you want?”

“I just wondered if you found the cave.”

InuYasha snorted. “You waited seven months to ask me if I found the fucking cave?” he bellowed. Myouga flew back from the force of InuYasha's tirade and hung on to a few strands of hair to keep from being sent airborne.

“I looked for you a few months ago,” Myouga whined as he tugged himself back onto InuYasha's shoulder. “Oh . . . what is this? Is this . . . b-b-blo-ood?”

“Back off,” InuYasha snarled as he yanked the vial out of the flea's greedy line of vision. “What do you think? We're bottling blood for your convenience? Fat fucking chance, parasite.” Stuffing the talisman into his undershirt, InuYasha snorted and eyed the youkai coldly.

Myouga sighed and shook his head slowly. “How little trust you have in me,” he lamented.

“One does not wear blood unless it is necessary. I trust this is . . . necessary?”

“You don't know the half of it.”

“Oh? Do tell!” Myouga exclaimed as he sank down, crossing his legs and crossing his arms as he stared expectantly at the hanyou.

“Forget it. I ain't telling you a damn thing.”

“But blood is only used in the direst of ways, InuYasha-sama . . . surely you know this. What if it breaks?”

“It ain't gonna break,” InuYasha assured the flea even as he shifted uncomfortably in his place. “What do you mean by `dire'?”

Myouga shrugged. “Suppose you tell me why you're using it.”

InuYasha narrowed his gaze suspiciously at the tiny youkai. “Suppose I don't.”

Myouga sighed and shook his head, closing his eyes as he pondered InuYasha's question. “It depends on what you're attempting to repress. Breaking it could have no effect at all, or it could cause whatever it is you're trying to inhibit to become irreversible.”

InuYasha digested that information with a slight grimace. `Irreversible? That would mean . . .' Grinding his teeth together as he tried not to think about Myouga's bleak assessment, he sat back and drew a deep breath. “Tell me if you've heard anything about a butterfly youkai.”

InuYasha snorted again. “It's only temporary. I'll track her down and kill her for what she did to Kikyou, and for thinking I'd ever let her harm Kagome. That'll break the toxin's control.”

“There is another way to do that,” Myouga said slowly, cautiously, as though he feared InuYasha's reaction. The flea retreated to InuYasha's knee.

“Spit it out, Myouga,” he threatened.

Myouga scooted away from InuYasha's claws as the hanyou lowered a hand dangerously close—too close for comfort. “You could act out your dreams! That would do it!”

Shocked silence engulfed the forest as InuYasha's brain slowed to a crawl. Myouga took the opportunity to hop off InuYasha's knee. “Well, well, must be going! Nice seeing you again, InuYasha-sama! Goodbye!”

“Hold it!” InuYasha bellowed, making a mad grab for the youkai. He caught Myouga before he could hop away and, holding him between his thumb and index finger, InuYasha dangled him in front of his nose. “There's gotta be another way!”

“Uh . . .”

“Myouga . . .”

“There isn't! If that vial breaks, these dreams you're having now? Intensify them by a thousand!” Myouga wiggled, trying to escape, to no avail. “What are your dreams like?”

“None of your fucking business!” InuYasha snarled, heaving the flea youkai away as hard as he could. “I'm surrounded by fucking hentai! Not a damn one of you has any respect for my privacy!”

Voice echoing in the forest, InuYasha flopped back against the tree trunk and wondered just how long it would take any of them to figure it out if he just took off.

`You could act out your dreams!'

He squeezed his eyes closed and wrapped his arms around Tetsusaiga again. `No way . . . Kagome'd never . . . she wouldn't . . . Why am I even thinking about this? Keh!'

`That would do it!'

He sighed, ears drooping as a misplaced melancholy seeped over him. `Even if she would—which she wouldn't—I couldn't . . . I can't . . . not for the wrong reasons . . .'

And yet the idea wouldn't let go of his mind, either. Twisting and turning upon itself, it didn't matter how hard InuYasha tried to ignore it, the idea just kept lingering there.

Kagome's face hovered before him, smiling and friendly.

He could feel the edges of sleep wrapping around him, and he sighed. `Kagome . . . Sleep well . . .'

`You could act out your dreams! That would do it!'

He yawned. `Keh . . . even Myouga's gone. . . nuts.'

He drifted off to sleep cradled in the safe branches of Goshinboku.

::0::0::000::0::0::

The mist seeped into everything, into pores of her skin, into her ears, into her eyes. The moisture gathered in a damp blanket, lending a sultry feel to the balmy night. Clothes stuck to her skin, hair stuck to her face like the superficial sheen of perspiration. Breathing was constricted, the humidity pressed against her lungs. Kagome wandered without seeing as she squinted in the fog. `Where am I?'

The soft rustle of movement just beyond the range of her vision drew a soft gasp from her as she cautiously stepped forward. She wasn't afraid. What was this feeling that tightened around her chest and around her stomach? Far from unpleasant, the sensation was almost inebriating . . .

“Here you are. Why didn't you come back?”

Kagome stopped, whirled around to face the owner of that voice, the voice she knew. “InuYasha.”

“Are you still mad at me?” he asked, his gaze dropping as his ears flattened.

“No . . . are you still mad at me?”

“Keh.”

She giggled suddenly. He finally looked at her. “What's so funny, wench?”

She waved her hand as she tried to stop laughing. After regaining a semblance of her control, she cleared her throat. “You've never spoken to me before, in my dreams . . .”

Kagome's grin turned mischievous as she slowly got to her feet and ambled over to him. “Well, in that case, if it's my dream . . . then shouldn't you be kissing me?”

“Uh . . . ah . . . all . . . all right.”

Rising on her toes, Kagome wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close as his lips met hers. The gentleness behind his every touch, his every movement set off a wave of violent tremors throughout her body. Somehow he felt more real to her, more imposing, more vibrant than he ever had before in her dreams. Arms wrapping around her to hold her close, he coaxed her lips open with his tongue, scraping his fangs over her as she sighed.

Pushing open his haori and undershirt, feeling the feverish skin underneath, she dragged her mouth away from his to nuzzle against his neck as he growled low, savage and somehow calming, too. “Kagome . . .” he breathed out as she slowly savored the feel of his flesh under her fingers.

A sudden sensation of falling was met by the gentle hands that caught her. InuYasha winced. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Are you all right?”

She grinned and smoothed his hair out of his face. “I'm fine . . . you can't get hurt in dreams, right?”

“That, and you've dreamed up all this cushion,” he remarked. “Why else do you think I fell?”

She was about to retort but the claws that lightly trailed up over her side stopped her as her eyes closed, as she collapsed against him. Tracing her lips with the tip of his claw, InuYasha gasped as she kissed his fingertip. She pressed her hips against his. His gasp rasped into a hoarse growl.

Lowering her mouth over his again, Kagome teased him unmercifully with light brushes of her lips over his. He tried to capture her. She leaned away enough to taunt him. His chest pressed against hers burned her through the thin fabric of her nightgown. The sultry damp that molded her gown to her frame offered little protection against the consuming heat of his overwhelming body, alive and demanding, hungry and unyielding. One arm holding her tight against him, the other rose to cup her breast.

Tearing her mouth away as she tossed her head back with a sharp gasp, Kagome could feel her body dissolving as he lifted his hips against hers again.

An insistent buzz grew steadily louder. Try as she might to ignore it, Kagome was dismayed as InuYasha winced and faded, and as she slowly opened her eyes. Never in her life had she ever been quite so tempted to smash her clock to pieces . . . or to give it to InuYasha to do it . . .

With a frustrated growl, she smacked her hand down on the button to shut off the alarm. She meant to get up early so she could go back to the past and bring the others a nice breakfast. Just now, however, she wished she hadn't thought of doing that.

`That dream . . . it was so real . . .'

She made a face and groaned softly as she rolled to bury her face in her pillow. Her body was still hot and sweating, still aching with the fiercest need she'd ever felt before. `Maybe it was a little too real . . .'

One of the unexpected side effects of her pregnancy had been a very unsettling increase in her libido. She'd read about such things, but she hadn't honestly expected it. That was, until the last few weeks. More than once she'd gotten up in the morning with the lingering memories of those dreams still rolling around in her head. Every single time, she'd not been able to actually look InuYasha in the eye for at least half the day. Afraid that he'd be able to see what she was remembering . . . but this one was so much worse. Way too realistic, much too hard to forget . . . If she was ever able to look at InuYasha without spontaneously combusting out of sheer and total embarrassment, she'd be amazed . . .

Wishing that she could go back to sleep, that she could return to that dream that was so rudely interrupted, Kagome squeezed her eyes closed. `This is just not fair,' she fumed. `If he's going to show up in my dreams, he could at least—'

Cutting off that train of thought, Kagome whined and smashed her face deeper into her pillow. `Maybe,' she thought with a grimace, `no one will notice if I don't go back until after the baby was born . . .'

Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters inMetamorphosis): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.